


(nur bei dir)

by lagazzraladra



Category: Leviathan - Scott Westerfeld
Genre: Fuck the Canon, Genderqueer Character, Other, Queer Themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-29
Updated: 2013-03-29
Packaged: 2017-12-06 20:18:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/739700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lagazzraladra/pseuds/lagazzraladra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>kann ich so sein wie ich bin</i><br/><i>oder vorher schon war</i><br/>--<br/>only with you can i be who i really am, or who i used to be</p>
            </blockquote>





	(nur bei dir)

**Author's Note:**

> so disclaimer, i never actually finished the leviathan series because i got extremely disinterested in the lack of queer characters present in it. additionally, i was upset that deryn was never revealed to be trans (mostly bc i'm trans myself and is it too much to ask for some fucking representation??) and i mean westerfield really dropped the ball on that one so... here's this fic

Deryn binds her chest so she can join the Airforce, it’s as simple as that.

\--

Except when it suddenly isn’t.

Like when she suddenly isn’t just Deryn anymore; when she descends some kind of unseen line and becomes “Dylan”. Not just exclusively to others, but to herself as well. And at first it’s scary for her and she thinks that she might be losing her mind. Until, she realizes that even before the first time she tied the bandages around her chest, she already had been thinking these things; been thinking that maybe her body wasn’t right, been thinking that it definitely wasn’t what she wanted.

Been thinking that maybe there was something she could do to change all of that.

\--

It takes the longest time for Deyrn to come to terms with the fact that the Leviathan is making her dreams come true, and not just those of becoming a Midshipman.

\--

When the mess that is Alek coming aboard the Leviathan happens, Deyrn is stuck in some kind of limbo between his identify; trying on different names and pronouns as easily as she tried on boy's clothes. It’s a scary process, but in the same way it’s incredibly liberating and wonderful.

But when Alek comes aboard and Dylan sees him for the first time things become just the slightest bit more complicated, because Deyrn finds himself hopelessly attracted to this boy. Which leaves her wondering, _what does this mean_? And also feeling slightly sick because, of course it isn’t enough for her to be Dylan half of the time. On top of it all, Dylan has to be a bloody sodomite as well.

\--

Eventually, Dylan settles into his name and his pronouns and when he finally does it’s like a giant breath is being released out of his body and everything feels _good_ and _right._

\--

Alek kisses like he knows what he’s doing (even though he probably doesn’t); Dylan kisses like he has no idea what he’s doing (because he doesn’t).

Apparently, Alek had been looking for Dylan, and he finds him in one of the far reaches of the Leviathan; a place where the wind doesn’t whip quite that fiercely around the beast.  Alex settles down next to Dylan and just stays there with him, not doing anything but watching the clouds go by with Dylan.

They’re very close together, however, and their thighs are touching and every once-in-a-while Alek will fidget and his hand will brush against Dylan’s. Then he’ll pull it away and Dylan will be able to see him blushing from out of the corner of his eye.

The next time he does it, Dylan grabs his hand and holds it firmly in his own, his stomach doing nervous little flip-flops, over and over again.

“What are you doing, Alek?” Dylan asks, gesturing at how they’re sitting, “What is this business?”

“ _Schiesse,_ I’m not, _”_ Alek mutters, shaking his head, and then he’s turning towards Dylan to look him full on in the face. And then he’s cupping Dylan’s jaw and kissing him, kissing him right on the goddamn mouth! And Dylan, the idiot that he is, opens his own mouth up to Alek’s insistent kisses with a gasp, meeting him half-way and it’s good, it’s very, very good.

And then Alek is pulling away much too soon going, “ _e_ _s tut mir lied_ , _es tut mir lied,_ I didn’t mean-”

“I liked what you meant,” Dylan says, cutting Alek off. And it’s an incredibly cheesy line, but it works because Alek laughs and kisses him again and everything goes back to being perfect.

Except for that fact there’s a drumming in Dylan’s head repeating _tell him you’re a girl tell him you’re a girl tell him you’re a girl_ but Dylan stops himself from saying anything; because he isn’t really a girl anymore, he hasn’t been one in a long time.

So instead, Dylan let’s his hands move down the planes of Alek’s body, envying the smooth, flatness of it, as he presses further into Alek’s kisses. Alek laughs at the neediness of it, until Dyaln catches his bottom lip between his teeth, which makes Alek growl, and then from then on they become a flurry of limbs.

He can tell him later.

\--

Sometimes, Deryn will come back in short bursts and take charge again. She’ll remind Dylan of why he started to bind his chest in the first place; that it was so that she could be a girl and be in the military at the same time. And it’s hard, so hard, for Dylan to remind himself that at one point he was Deryn and at one point she decided that this is what she wanted too.

\--

Alek scuttles his hands along Dylan’s stomach, places fluttering kisses along Dylan’s hipbones, and whispers into the skin there;

“You could have told me.”

And Dylan hides his face in the crook of his arm and says, “I thought you would hate me for being false.”

A beat and then Dylan also adds,

“I thought you would hate me for being ugly.”

Dylan can feel Alek’s eyes on him, watching him and he’s about to say something to else, to brush off what he’s just said as a joke but then-

 _“Nein, nein, nein, du bist nicht falsch. Aber du bist am besten aussehend_ ," Alek says in German, his voice rough and cracked with emotion. He’s moving up Dylan’s body and then leaning on his elbows for a better view of Dylan’s face " _am besten aussehend Junge. Meine schöne Junge._ ”

Alek’s last words ghost over Dylan’s lips and Dylan takes the chance to tilt their mouths together ever-so-softly-and-sweetly and Alek makes a delighted sound like he’s dying and drowning in bliss at the same time and everything else after that is slow and beautiful and _just right._

Dylan thinks he might just fucking cry with how right it all is.

\--

Deryn binds her chest so she can join the Airforce; Dylan binds his chest so he can finally breathe. In the end, they both get what they want; in the end, they are the same.

**Author's Note:**

> for the bit alek says in german towards the end it basically translates to:  
> "no, no, no, you're not false. and you are the most handsome, the most handsome boy. my beautiful boy."


End file.
